EQ6-R Pro

I have been dying to get a quality go-to mount for astrophotography and have been eyeing this one for a few years now. I was beyond happy to see it on here with Amazon's financing options which for me was better than buying from more specialized dealers. My packages (it comes in two boxes... one for the mount and the other for the tripod) both arrived together and in good condition. In other reviews here on Amazon people described only getting one of the two packages, but that is pretty common no matter who is selling this mount it seems. Regardless, I was happy when I saw the delivery man pull two boxes out of the van (I admit I was watching out my front window for the delivery driver like a kid looking for Santa at Christmas). Once unboxed, everything was easy to put together.Instead of the hand controller, I use my cheap $150 laptop to control the mount with EQMOD, Stellarium, and PHD Guiding (with a guide camera) via an ethernet to USB cable. At some point I will probably upgrade to the ZWO ASIAIR Plus. The EQ6-R Pro is a well known mount with plenty of in-depth reviews on YouTube along with tutorial videos. This is a great go-to mount for its price, payload capacity, durability, and tracking accuracy. In fact, it is probably the best in its class. When properly polar-aligned, and with the use of a guide camera, achieving sub-arcsecond accuracy is easy as long as the payload is within limits. The general rule of thumb for most astrophotography go-to mounts is not to go more than 50-75% of the maximum payload rating. As long as your payload does not weigh more than that, you cannot go wrong buying this mount and it will serve you well for years. I really love the fact this mount has an encoder built in and I can upload my PEC (periodic error correction) information right into the mount (PPEC)... for those who do not know what that means, it means the mount can permanently remember where/when to make certain tracking adjustments and adjust before they happen. (This makes tracking even more accurate) I used PHD Guiding to setup PPEC.There are not a lot of complaints about this model in general. The few common ones generally revolve around the "stiction" from the thick globs of grease used to lubricate the bearings and worm drives. One can feel this when balancing the equipment during setup. There are a number of online tutorials on how to "hypertune" the mount by cleaning off the old grease and applying a better quality lubricant, though, doing so will negate the warranty and are for more advanced users. Another common complaint is that the alt-az screws at the base of the mount that help proper polar alignment can feel awkward and not very smooth, but in the end they do their job. And lastly, for those who will be using this mount in super cold environments and use the hand controller, the LCD display on the controller will stop working if the temperatures fall too low. This is a common problem with telescope hand controllers, though some more expensive mounts do have a heating mechanism behind their controllers to keep the LCD screen working and not freezing.I hope this review helps. Like I said, there are plenty of reviews and tutorials on YouTube on this mount and all it has to offer.Clear Skies!

I bought this mount so I could drive to dark sites and use 8" imaging OTAs. It's a little heavy at about 40lbs for just the head, but definitely manageable. And the handle really shows it's strength as a travel mount.It doesn't come with a case for the head or the tripod, so if you're driving around with this you'll definitely want one. I found the Pelican 1600 to be a great fit for the head, and tripod bags are pretty cheap. You'll want to carry the counterweights separately because they add another 22 lbs together, and you need both for 8" OTAs.Polar alignment is easy enough, but the pattern in the finder scope isn't oriented vertically unless I rotate the R.A. axis to some weird angle.Overall the mount is quiet, study, and accurate. It's probably the best deal in this weight class.

I tried twice to get it from this seller, but both times, I only received the box with the tripod, while the boxes containing the mount were claimed to be lost in transit. Amazon customer service was helpful, but I ended up purchasing from somewhere else.

I had started to do astrophotography in 2022. I started by purchasing the iExos-100 PMC-8 through Explore Scientific. It works, it's fine for what it does, but has an extremely low weight capacity, the gears tend to bind, and there's not a lot of info on how to get it to work with some software. Many users on YouTube seem to have the EQ6R-Pro and were taking beautiful pictures with them, so I decided to take the plunge. This is an entry-level mount...and believe me, this is the one to start with. If you want to do astrophotography, your biggest investment is the mount and you will do fine with this one.The slewing is whisper quiet and immediate; I've not had any backlash at all. You will want to purchase a power adapter to go from the 12v DC to AC, but this is not mandatory (many/most powerstations will have the proper power port). The included handcontrol is very responsive (though setting it up for visual can be a bit tricky) and the mount has an ST4 autoguide port (I don't use this as I run my guide camera through my PC) and a USB connection.The payload of 44 pounds is well above what I currently have, so there is room to breathe (it would appear the limit will be an 8" imaging Newtonian) with a Vixen and Losmandy style mounting bracket. The tripod has 2" legs and is rock solid. The mount is easy to set up and teardown...though with the weight, portability isn't its main selling point.If being used for astrophotography, the mount will need to be set up with your control PC to be used in whatever your control software is (I currently use NINA). This necessitates downloading of ASCOM drivers and EQMOD (well, for PC, at least; I'm unsure for those that use Raspberry PI or ASIAIR). Thankfully, there are a myriad of resources online that make this a breeze.If you are wanting to take pictures of the sky, this is where to start.